The Solicitors Regulation Authority was described as ‘heading towards the position of being irresponsible’ after Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal proceedings were delayed by more than two hours yesterday.
The SRA's application to withdraw its case against Ian Laing, admitted in 2014, was listed to appear before the SDT at 10am. No details of the allegations were available.
Seeking an update more than two hours after the hearing was due to start, Teresa Cullen, sitting as SDT chair, said: ‘We have been waiting quite a while. We have had various updates of negotiations between you, but we do not want matters to go on indefinitely.’
Stephen Brassington, for the SRA, apologised, adding that he had explained to Laing the reasons for the delay. ‘I make an application for a further short adjournment. In the long run it will bear fruit and save a great deal of time for everybody,' he said. 'The parties have been in negotiations this morning and reached a position where this matter will be disposed of – dealing with the application and also with costs. The sign off for want of a better phrase is yet to be officially given. We are told that the decision is imminent that is why I make an application for a further short adjournment.’
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The three-person SDT panel expressed ‘some concern’. Cullen added: ‘We have lost a whole morning of tribunal time and, more importantly, we have an unrepresented respondent who has been in a room on his own without independent legal advice, obviously he [has] his own expertise in dealing with that.’
The SRA is 'heading towards the position of being irresponsible to not have someone available to give clear instructions and sign-off’, Cullen said. ‘We are a bit concerned how negotiations can be taking place for nearly two hours without somebody available to give instructions.’
Brassington then confirmed he had received instructions and the SDT rose to give parties a chance for final discussions.
When the hearing resumed, Brassington said: ‘This morning after 10am the parties began negotiations to settle this matter. At 10.56 a draft order had been written up, the one before you, and sent to the SRA’s in-house legal team. At 11.08 it was forwarded to the director required to make the final decision. They were, at that stage, in an external meeting and were therefore unavailable to end that meeting and deal with the issue. At 11.34 they extracted themselves from the other engagement and addressed the memorandum that had been produced. That required for there to be a briefing note produced for the SRA. At 12.04 agreement was given.
‘All of those responsible for making those decisions were in fact, unknown to me, in the call observing proceedings. They were attempting to contact me to give me that information but it did not reach me as I did not see the messages.
‘That amounts to 26 minutes [delay] when the person responsible for giving sign-off was in an external meeting which they then managed to extract themselves from.’
Cullen replied: ‘It remains a view, if we have a case that is in court that people with necessary authority should be available when issues arise.’
Making the agreed order, the SDT said Laing’s application to adjourn the case and for a transcript was withdrawn and the SRA’s application to ‘fully withdraw’ its case against Laing was granted. The regulator was also ordered to pay £8,350 to Laing for his costs.
